How is your organization’s customer management process?  The stories are pouring in from readersof my articles and blogs.  This one from a reader in Indianapolis.  You just can’t make this stuff up.  He writes:

“I bought my wife a new touch screen cell phone from Sprint.  When she got it, she just didn’t like it (couldn’t text well, not user-friendly, etc).  Sprint’s policy is that any new phone can be returned for any reason within 30 days of activation (Feb. 17th for us).  On Sunday, March 1st, I called to initiate the return process only to find that the phone could only be returned via mail and not to a store.  When the return kit hadn’t come in the mail by Thursday (it was promised on Tuesday), I called customer service to find that I actually could bring it to one of two corporate stores in Indianapolis.  When I went to one of the stores the next day, I was informed by the completely imcompetent employees that in fact I could NOT return it to a store and had to go via mail again.  Now I’m coming up to the end of my 30-day refund period.  So I called customer service again.  I was transferred from department to department, put on hold while agents spoke to supervisors, transferred again for a 2 hour period until they eventually said there was nothing they could do.
 
I said, “Fine, then put me through to the disconnection department.”  Suddenly every supervisor wanted to do anything and everything to keep my business.  But I’d had enough.  Altogether, I spent 6 hours and 45 minutes on the phone over a 5-day stretch AND spent a useless trip to one of the corporate stores.  Low and behold, the return kit arrives in the mail the next day, I sent her phone back, and proceeded to AT&T where I was in and out in 20 minutes with a new IPhone and cell phone plan.
 
If someone at Sprint would have spent the time I deserved, I would still be spending by hard-earned dollars with them.  Now AT&T gets their chance.”

The only thing I would challenge the reader on was the “incompetent” employees.  Employees that are “incompetent” are only so because the systems they work in are broken.  Sprint does not understand that a customer draws value end-to-end, only a systems thinking organization would understand this.  The failure demand (progress chasing, rework,etc.) phone calls are driving up costs at Sprint and losing customers for good. 

My guess is that if command and control thinkers get a hold of this they will look for some heads to roll, but a systems thinker understands that only 5% of problems are associated with a worker and the other 95% comes from the system (management, work design, technology, etc.).  More training, rewriting scripts or new targets will not fix this problem . . . it is systemic.  A better leadership strategy is in order and it begins with a change in thinking from command and control to systems thinking.